Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. Read online

  II

  IN THE CURRANHILTY COUNTRY

  It is hardly credible that I should have been induced to depart from myusual walk of life by a creature so uninspiring as the grey horse thatI bought from Flurry Knox for L25.

  Perhaps it was the monotony of being questioned by every other personwith whom I had five minutes' conversation, as to when I was coming outwith the hounds, and being further informed that in the days whenCaptain Browne, the late Coastguard officer, had owned the grey, therewas not a fence between this and Mallow big enough to please them. Atall events, there came an epoch-making day when I mounted the Quakerand presented myself at a meet of Mr. Knox's hounds. It is my beliefthat six out of every dozen people who go out hunting are disagreeablyconscious of a nervous system, and two out of the six are in what isbrutally called "a blue funk." I was not in a blue funk, but I wasconscious not only of a nervous system, but of the anatomical fact thatI possessed large, round legs, handsome in their way, even admirable intheir proper sphere, but singularly ill adapted for adhering to theslippery surfaces of a saddle. By a fatal intervention of Providence,the sport, on this my first day in the hunting-field, was such as Icould have enjoyed from a bath-chair. The hunting-field was, on thisoccasion, a relative term, implying long stretches of unfenced moorlandand bog, anything, in fact, save a field, the hunt itself might alsohave been termed a relative one, being mainly composed of Mr. Knox'srelations in all degrees of cousinhood. It was a day when frost andsunshine combined went to one's head like iced champagne; the distantsea looked like the Mediterranean, and for four sunny hours the Knoxrelatives and I followed nine couple of hounds at a tranquil footpacealong the hills, our progress mildly enlivened by one or two scramblesin the shape of jumps. At three o'clock I jogged home, and felt withinme the newborn desire to brag to Peter Cadogan of the Quaker's doings,as I dismounted rather stiffly in my own yard.

  I little thought that the result would be that three weeks later Ishould find myself in a railway carriage at an early hour of a Decembermorning, in company with Flurry Knox and four or five of his clan,journeying towards an unknown town, named Drumcurran, with anappropriate number of horses in boxes behind us and a van full ofhounds in front. Mr. Knox's hounds were on their way, by invitation,to have a day in the country of their neighbours, the CurranhiltyHarriers, and with amazing fatuity I had allowed myself to be cajoledinto joining the party. A northerly shower was striking in long spikeson the glass of the window, the atmosphere of the carriage was bluewith tobacco smoke, and my feet, in a pair of new blucher boots, hadsunk into a species of Arctic sleep.

  "Well, you got my letter about the dance at the hotel to-night?" saidFlurry Knox, breaking off a whispered conversation with his amateurwhip, Dr. Jerome Hickey, and sitting down beside me. "And we're to goout with the Harriers to-day, and they've a sure fox for our houndsto-morrow. I tell you you'll have the best fun ever you had. It's agreat country to ride. Fine honest banks, that you can come racing atanywhere you like."

  Dr. Hickey, a saturnine young man, with a long nose and a black torpedobeard, returned to his pocket the lancet with which he had beentrimming his nails.

  "They're like the Tipperary banks," he said; "you climb down nine feetand you fall the rest."

  It occurred to me that the Quaker and I would most probably fall allthe way, but I said nothing.

  "I hear Tomsy Flood has a good horse this season," resumed Flurry.

  "Then it's not the one you sold him," said the Doctor.

  "I'll take my oath it's not," said Flurry with a grin. "I believe hehas it in for me still over that one."

  Dr. Jerome's moustache went up under his nose and showed his whiteteeth.

  "Small blame to him! when you sold him a mare that was wrong of bothher hind-legs. Do you know what he did, Major Yeates? The mare waslame going into the fair, and he took the two hind-shoes off her andtold poor Flood she kicked them off in the box, and that was why shewas going tender, and he was so drunk he believed him."

  The conversation here deepened into trackless obscurities ofhorse-dealing. I took out my stylograph pen, and finished a letter toPhilippa, with a feeling that it would probably be my last.

  The next step in the day's enjoyment consisted in trotting in cavalcadethrough the streets of Drumcurran, with another northerly showerdescending upon us, the mud splashing in my face, and my feet comingtorturingly to life. Every man and boy in the town ran with us; theHarriers were somewhere in the tumult ahead, and the Quaker began topull and hump his back ominously. I arrived at the meet considerablyheated, and found myself one of some thirty or forty riders, who, withtraps and bicycles and footpeople, were jammed in a narrow, muddy road.We were late, and a move was immediately made across a series of grassfields, all considerately furnished with gates. There was a glacialgleam of sunshine and people began to turn down the collars of theircoats. As they spread over the field I observed that Mr. Knox was nolonger riding with old Captain Handcock, the Master of the Harriers,but had attached himself to a square-shouldered young lady witheffective coils of dark hair and a grey habit. She was riding afidgety black mare with great decision and a not disagreeable swagger.

  It was at about this moment that the hounds began to run, fast andsilently, and every one began to canter.

  "This is nothing at all," said Dr. Hickey, thundering alongside of meon a huge young chestnut; "there might have been a hare here last week,or a red herring this morning. I wouldn't care if we only got what'dwarm us. For the matter of that, I'd as soon hunt a cat as a hare."

  I was already getting quite enough to warm me. The Quaker'srespectable grey head had twice disappeared between his forelegs in abrace of most unsettling bucks, and all my experiences at theriding-school at Sandhurst did not prepare me for the sensation ofjumping a briary wall with a heavy drop into a lane so narrow that eachhorse had to turn at right angles as he landed. I did not so turn, butsaved myself from entire disgrace by a timely clutch at the mane. Wescrambled out of the lane over a pile of stones and furze bushes, andat the end of the next field were confronted by a tall, stone-facedbank. Everyone, always excepting myself, was riding with that furiousvalour which is so conspicuous when neighbouring hunts meet, and theleading half-dozen charged the obstacle at steeplechase speed. Icaught a glimpse of the young lady in the grey habit, sitting squareand strong as her mare topped the bank, with Flurry and the redoubtableMr. Tomsy Flood riding on either hand; I followed in their wake, with ablind confidence in the Quaker, and none at all in myself. He refusedit. I suppose it was in token of affection and gratitude that I fellupon his neck; at all events, I had reason to respect his judgment, as,before I had recovered myself, the hounds were straggling back into thefield by a gap lower down.

  It finally appeared that the hounds could do no more with the line theyhad been hunting, and we proceeded to jog interminably, I knew notwhither. During this unpleasant process Flurry Knox bestowed on memany items of information, chiefly as to the pangs of jealousy he wasinflicting on Mr. Flood by his attentions to the lady in the greyhabit, Miss "Bobbie" Bennett.

  "She'll have all old Handcock's money one of these days--she's hisniece, y' know--and she's a good girl to ride, but she's not as youngas she was ten years ago. You'd be looking at a chicken a long timebefore you thought of her! She might take Tomsy some day if she can'tdo any better." He stopped and looked at me with a gleam in his eye."Come on, and I'll introduce you to her!"

  Before, however, this privilege could be mine, the whole cavalcade wasstopped by a series of distant yells, which apparently conveyedinformation to the hunt, though to me they only suggested a Red Indianscalping his enemy. The yells travelled rapidly nearer, and a youngman with a scarlet face and a long stick sprang upon the fence, andexplained that he and Patsy Lorry were after chasing a hare two milesdown out of the hill above, and ne'er a dog nor a one with them butthemselves, and she was lying, beat out, under a bush, and Patsy Lorrywas minding her until the hounds would come. I had a vision of th
ehumane Patsy Lorry fanning the hare with his hat, but apparently nobodyelse found the fact unusual. The hounds were hurried into the fields,the hare was again spurred into action, and I was again confronted withthe responsibilities of the chase. After the first five minutes I haddiscovered several facts about the Quaker. If the bank was above acertain height he refused it irrevocably, if it accorded with his ideashe got his forelegs over and ploughed through the rest of it on hisstifle-joints, or, if a gripe made this inexpedient, he remained poisedon top till the fabric crumbled under his weight. In the case of wallshe butted them down with his knees, or squandered them with hishind-legs. These operations took time, and the leaders of the huntstreamed farther and farther away over the crest of a hill, while theQuaker pursued at the equable gallop of a horse in the Bayeux Tapestry.

  I began to perceive that I had been adopted as a pioneer by a smallband of followers, who, as one of their number candidly explained"liked to have some one ahead of them to soften the banks," andaccordingly waited respectfully till the Quaker had made the roughplaces smooth, and taken the raw edge off the walls. They, in theirturn, showed me alternative routes when the obstacle proved above theQuaker's limit; thus, in ignoble confederacy, I and the offscourings ofthe Curranhilty hunt pursued our way across some four miles of country.When at length we parted it was with extreme regret on both sides. Ariver crossed our course, with boggy banks pitted deep with thehoof-marks of our forerunners; I suggested it to the Quaker, anddiscovered that Nature had not in vain endued him with the hindquartersof the hippopotamus. I presume the others had jumped it; the Quaker,with abysmal flounderings, walked through and heaved himself to safetyon the farther bank. It was the dividing of the ways. My friendlycompany turned aside as one man, and I was left with the world beforeme, and no guide save the hoof-marks in the grass. These presently ledme to a road, on the other side of which was a bank, that was at onceadded to the Quaker's black list. The rain had again begun to fallheavily, and was soaking in about my elbows; I suddenly asked myselfwhy, in Heaven's name, I should go any farther. No adequate reasonoccurred to me, and I turned in what I believed to be the direction ofDrumcurran.

  I rode on for possibly two or three miles without seeing a human being,until, from the top of a hill I descried a solitary lady rider. Istarted in pursuit. The rain kept blurring my eye-glass, but it seemedto me that the rider was a schoolgirl with hair hanging down her back,and that her horse was a trifle lame. I pressed on to ask my way, anddiscovered that I had been privileged to overtake no less a person thanMiss Bobbie Bennett.

  My question as to the route led to information of a varied character.Miss Bennett was going that way herself; her mare had given her whatshe called "a toss and a half," whereby she had strained her arm andthe mare her shoulder, her habit had been torn, and she had lost allher hairpins.

  "I'm an awful object," she concluded; "my hair's the plague of my lifeout hunting! I declare I wish to goodness I was bald!"

  I struggled to the level of the occasion with an appropriate protest.She had really very brilliant grey eyes, and her complexion wasundeniable. Philippa has since explained to me that it is a mere malefallacy that any woman can look well with her hair down her back, but Ihave always maintained that Miss Bobbie Bennett, with the rainglistening on her dark tresses, looked uncommonly well.

  "I shall never get it dry for the dance to-night," she complained.

  "I wish I could help you," said I.

  "Perhaps you've got a hairpin or two about you!" said she, with aglance that had certainly done great execution before now.

  I disclaimed the possession of any such tokens, but volunteered to goand look for some at a neighbouring cottage.

  The cottage door was shut, and my knockings were answered by astupefied-looking elderly man. Conscious of my own absurdity, I askedhim if he had any hairpins.

  "I didn't see a hare this week!" he responded in a slow bellow.

  "Hairpins!" I roared; "has your wife any hairpins?"

  "She has not." Then, as an after-thought, "She's dead these ten years."

  At this point a young woman emerged from the cottage, and, with manycoy grins, plucked from her own head some half-dozen hairpins, crooked,and grey with age, but still hairpins, and as such well worth myshilling. I returned with my spoil to Miss Bennett, only to beconfronted with a fresh difficulty. The arm that she had strained wastoo stiff to raise to her head.

  Miss Bobbie turned her handsome eyes upon me. "It's no use," she saidplaintively, "I can't do it!"

  I looked up and down the road; there was no one in sight. I offered todo it for her.

  Miss Bennett's hair was long, thick, and soft; it was also slipperywith rain. I twisted it conscientiously, as if it were a hay rope,until Miss Bennett, with an irrepressible shriek, told me it wouldbreak off. I coiled the rope with some success, and proceeded to nailit to her head with the hairpins. At all the most critical points one,if not both, of the horses moved; hairpins were driven home into MissBennett's skull, and were with difficulty plucked forth again; in fact,a more harrowing performance can hardly be imagined, but Miss Bennettbore it with the heroism of a pin-cushion.

  I was putting the finishing touches to the coiffure when some soundmade me look round, and I beheld at a distance of some fifty yards theentire hunt approaching us at a foot-pace. I lost my head, and,instead of continuing my task, I dropped the last hairpin as if it werered-hot, and kicked the Quaker away to the far side of the road, thus,if it were possible, giving the position away a shade more generously.

  There were fifteen riders in the group that overtook us, and fourteenof them, including the Whip, were grinning from ear to ear; thefifteenth was Mr. Tomsy Flood, and he showed no sign of appreciation.He shoved his horse past me and up to Miss Bennett, his red moustachebristling, truculence in every outline of his heavy shoulders. Hisgreen coat was muddy, and his hat had a cave in it. Things hadapparently gone ill with him.

  Flurry's witticisms held out for about two miles and a half; I do notgive them, because they were not amusing, but they all dealt ultimatelywith the animosity that I, in common with himself, should henceforthhave to fear from Mr. Flood.

  "Oh, he's a holy terror!" he said conclusively; "he was riding thetails off the hounds to-day to best me. He was near killing me twice.We had some words about it, I can tell you. I very near took my whipto him. Such a bull-rider of a fellow I never saw! He wouldn't somuch as stop to catch Bobbie Bennett's horse when I picked her up, hewas riding so jealous. His own girl, mind you! And such a crumpler asshe got too! I declare she knocked a groan out of the road when shestruck it!"

  "She doesn't seem so much hurt?" I said.

  "Hurt!" said Flurry, flicking casually at a hound. "You couldn't hurtthat one unless you took a hatchet to her!"

  The rain had reached a pitch that put further hunting out of thequestion, and we bumped home at that intolerable pace known as a"hound's jog." I spent the remainder of the afternoon over a fire inmy bedroom in the Royal Hotel, Drumcurran, official letters to writehaving mercifully provided me with an excuse for seclusion, while thebar and the billiard-room hummed below, and the Quaker's three-corneredgallop wreaked its inevitable revenge upon my person. As this processcontinued, and I became proportionately embittered, I asked myself, notfor the first time, what Philippa would say when introduced to mypresent circle of acquaintances.

  I have already mentioned that a dance was to take place at the hotel,given, as far as I could gather, by the leading lights of theCurranhilty Hunt. A less jocund guest than the wreck who at thepastoral hour of nine crept stiffly down to "chase the glowing hourswith flying feet" could hardly have been encountered. The dance washeld in the coffee-room, and a conspicuous object outside the door wasa saucer bath full of something that looked like flour.

  "Rub your feet in that," said Flurry; "that's French chalk! Theyhadn't time to do the floor, so they hit on this dodge."

  I complied with this encouraging direction, and fol
lowed him into theroom. Dancing had already begun, and the first sight that met my eyeswas Miss Bennett, in a yellow dress, waltzing with Mr. Tomsy Flood.She looked very handsome, and, in spite of her accident, she wasgetting round the sticky floor and her still more sticky partner withthe swing of a racing cutter. Her eye caught mine immediately, andwith confidence. Clearly our acquaintance that, in the space of twentyminutes, had blossomed tropically into hair-dressing, was not to beallowed to wither. Nor was I myself allowed to wither. Men, known andunknown, plied me with partners, till my shirt cuff was black withnames, and the number of dances stretched away into the blue distanceof to-morrow morning. The music was supplied by the organist of thechurch, who played with religious unction and at the pace of aprocessional hymn. I put forth into the melee with a junior Bennett,inferior in calibre to Miss Bobbie, but a strong goer, and, I fear,made but a sorry debut in the eyes of Drumcurran. At every othermoment I bumped into the unforeseen orbits of those who reversed, andof those who walked their partners backwards down the room with facesof ineffable supremacy. Being unskilled in these intricacies of anelder civilisation, the younger Miss Bennett fared but ingloriously atmy hands; the music pounded interminably on, until the heel of Mr.Flood put a period to our sufferings.

  "The nasty dirty filthy brute!" shrieked the younger Miss Bennett in asingle breath; "he's torn the gown off my back!"

  She whirled me to the cloak-room; we parted, mutually unregretted, atits door, and by, I fear, common consent, evaded our second dancetogether.

  Many, many times during the evening I asked myself why I did not go tobed. Perhaps it was the remembrance that my bed was situated some tenfeet above the piano in a direct line; but, whatever was the reason,the night wore on and found me still working my way down my shirt cuff.I sat out as much as possible, and found my partners to be, as a body,pretty, talkative, and ill dressed, and during the evening I had manyand varied opportunities of observing the rapid progress of Mr. Knox'sflirtation with Miss Bobbie Bennett. From No. 4 to No. 8 they wereinvisible; that they were behind a screen in the commercial-room mightbe inferred from Mr. Flood's thundercloud presence in the passageoutside.

  At No. 9 the young lady emerged for one of her dances with me; it was abarn dance, and particularly trying to my momently stiffening muscles;but Miss Bobbie, whether in dancing or sitting out, went in for "therigour of the game." She was in as hard condition as one of heruncle's hounds, and for a full fifteen minutes I capered and swoopedbeside her, larding the lean earth as I went, and replying butspasmodically to her even flow of conversation.

  "That'll take the stiffness out of you!" she exclaimed, as the organistslowed down reverentially to a conclusion. "I had a bet with FlurryKnox over that dance. He said you weren't up to my weight at the pace!"

  I led her forth to the refreshment table, and was watching with awe herfearless consumption of claret cup that I would not have touched for asovereign, when Flurry, with a partner on his arm, strolled past us.

  "Well, you won the gloves, Miss Bobbie!" he said. "Don't you wish youmay get them!"

  "Gloves without the _g_, Mr. Knox!" replied Miss Bennett, in a voiceloud enough to reach the end of the passage, where Mr. Thomas Flood wasburying his nose in a very brown whisky-and-soda.

  "Your hair's coming down!" retorted Flurry. "Ask Major Yeates if hecan spare you a few hairpins!"

  Swifter than lightning Miss Bennett hurled a macaroon at her retreatingfoe, missed him, and subsided laughing on to a sofa. I mopped my browand took my seat beside her, wondering how much longer I could live upto the social exigencies of Drumcurran.

  Miss Bennett, however, proved excellent company. She told me artfully,and inch by inch, all that Mr. Flood had said to her on the subject ofmy hair-dressing; she admitted that she had, as a punishment, cut himout of three dances and given them to Flurry Knox. When I remarkedthat in fairness they should have been given to me, she darted a veryattractive glance at me, and pertinently observed that I had not askedfor them.

  As steals the dawn into a fevered room, And says "Be of good cheer, the day is born!"

  so did the rumour of supper pass among the chaperons, male and female.It was obviously due to a sense of the fitness of things that Mrs.Bennett was apportioned to me, and I found myself in the gratifyingposition of heading with her the procession to supper. My impressionsof Mrs. Bennett are few but salient. She wore an apple-green satindress and filled it tightly; wisely mistrusting the hotel supper, shehad imported sandwiches and cake in a pocket-handkerchief, and, warmedby two glasses of sherry, she made me the recipient of the remarkableconfidence that she had but two back teeth in her head, but, thank God,they met. When, with the other starving men, I fell upon the remainsof the feast, I regretted that I had declined her offer of a sandwich.

  Of the remainder of the evening I am unable to give a detailed account.Let it not for one instant be imagined that I had looked upon the wineof the Royal Hotel when it was red, or, indeed, any other colour; as amatter of fact, I had espied an inconspicuous corner in the entrancehall, and there I first smoked a cigarette, and subsequently sank intouneasy sleep. Through my dreams I was aware of the measured poundingof the piano, of the clatter of glasses at the bar, of wheels in thestreet, and then, more clearly, of Flurry's voice assuring Miss Bennettthat if she'd only wait for another dance he'd get the R.M. out of bedto do her hair for her--then again oblivion.

  At some later period I was dropping down a chasm on the Quaker's back,and landing with a shock; I was twisting his mane into a chignon, whenhe turned round his head and caught my arm in his teeth. I awoke withthe dew of terror on my forehead, to find Miss Bennett leaning over mein a scarlet cloak with a hood over her head, and shaking me by my coatsleeve.

  "Major Yeates," she began at once in a hurried whisper, "I want you tofind Flurry Knox, and tell him there's a plan to feed his hounds at sixo'clock this morning so as to spoil their hunting!"

  "How do you know?" I asked, jumping up.

  "My little brother told me. He came in with us to-night to see thedance, and he was hanging round in the stables, and he heard one of themen telling another there was a dead mule in an outhouse in Bride'sAlley, all cut up ready to give to Mr. Knox's hounds."

  "But why shouldn't they get it?" I asked in sleepy stupidity.

  "Is it fill them up with an old mule just before they're going outhunting?" flashed Miss Bennett. "Hurry and tell Mr. Knox; don't letTomsy Flood see you telling him--or any one else."

  "Oh, then it's Mr. Flood's game?" I said, grasping the situation atlength.

  "It is," said Miss Bennett, suddenly turning scarlet; "he's a disgrace!I'm ashamed of him! I'm done with him!"

  I resisted a strong disposition to shake Miss Bennett by the hand.

  "I can't wait," she continued. "I made my mother drive back amile--she doesn't know a thing about it--I said I'd left my purse inthe cloak-room. Good-night! Don't tell a soul but Flurry!"

  She was off, and upon my incapable shoulders rested the responsibilityof the enterprise.

  It was past four o'clock, and the last bars of the last waltz werebeing played. At the bar a knot of men, with Flurry in their midst,were tossing "Odd man out" for a bottle of champagne. Flurry was notin the least drunk, a circumstance worthy of remark in his presentcompany, and I got him out into the hall and unfolded my tidings. Thelight of battle lit in his eye as he listened.

  "I knew by Tomsy he was shaping for mischief," he said coolly; "he'staken as much liquor as'd stiffen a tinker, and he's only half-drunkthis minute. Hold on till I get Jerome Hickey and CharlieKnox--they're sober; I'll be back in a minute."

  I was not present at the council of war thus hurriedly convened; I wasmerely informed when they returned that we were all to "hurry on." Mybest evening pumps have never recovered the subsequent proceedings.They, with my swelled and aching feet inside them, were raced down onefilthy lane after another, until, somewhere on the outskirts ofDrumcurran, Flurry pushed open the gate of a yard and
went in. It wasnearly five o'clock on that raw December morning; low down in the sky ahazy moon shed a diffused light; all the surrounding houses were stilland dark. At our footsteps an angry bark or two came from inside thestable.

  "Whisht!" said Flurry, "I'll say a word to them before I open the door."

  At his voice a chorus of hysterical welcome arose; without more delayhe flung open the stable door, and instantly we were all knee-deep in arush of hounds. There was not a moment lost. Flurry started at aquick run out of the yard with the whole pack pattering at his heels.Charley Knox vanished; Dr. Hickey and I followed the hounds, splashinginto puddles and hobbling over patches of broken stones, till we leftthe town behind and hedges arose on either hand.

  "Here's the house!" said Flurry, stopping short at a low entrance gate;"many's the time I've been here when his father had it; it'll be aqueer thing if I can't find a window I can manage, and the old cook hehas is as deaf as the dead."

  He and Doctor Hickey went in at the gate with the hounds; I hesitatedignobly in the mud.

  "This isn't an R.M.'s job," said Flurry in a whisper, closing the gatein my face; "you'd best keep clear of house-breaking."

  I accepted his advice, but I may admit that before I turned for home asash was gently raised, a light had sprung up in one of the lowerwindows, and I heard Flurry's voice saying, "Over, over, over!" to hishounds.

  There seemed to me to be no interval at all between these events andthe moment when I woke in bright sunlight to find Dr. Hickey standingby my bedside in a red coat with a tall glass in his hand.

  "It's nine o'clock," he said. "I'm just after waking Flurry Knox.There wasn't one stirring in the hotel till I went down and pulled the'boots' from under the kitchen table! It's well for us the meet's inthe town; and, by-the-bye, your grey horse has four legs on him thesize of bolsters this morning; he won't be fit to go out, I'm afraid.Drink this anyway, you're in the want of it."

  Dr. Hickey's eyelids were rather pink, but his hand was as steady as arock. The whisky-and-soda was singularly untempting.

  "What happened last night?" I asked eagerly as I gulped it.

  "Oh, it all went off very nicely, thank you," said Hickey, twisting hisblack beard to a point. "We benched as many of the hounds in Flood'sbed as'd fit, and we shut the lot into the room. We had them justcomfortable when we heard his latchkey below at the door." He brokeoff and began to snigger.

  "Well?" I said, sitting bolt upright.

  "Well, he got in at last, and he lit a candle then. That took him fiveminutes. He was pretty tight. We were looking at him over thebanisters until he started to come up, and according as he came up, wewent on up the top flight. He stood admiring his candle for a while onthe landing, and we wondered he didn't hear the hounds snuffing underthe door. He opened it then, and, on the minute, three of them boltedout between his legs." Dr. Hickey again paused to indulge inMephistophelian laughter. "Well, you know," he went on, "when a man inpoor Tomsy's condition sees six dogs jumping out of his bed he's apt tomake a wrong diagnosis. He gave a roar, and pitched the candlestick atthem, and ran for his life downstairs, and all the hounds after him.'Gone away!' screeches that devil Flurry, pelting downstairs on top ofthem in the dark. I believe I screeched too."

  "Good heavens!" I gasped, "I was well out of that!"

  "Well, you were," admitted the Doctor. "However, Tomsy bested them inthe dark, and he got to ground in the pantry. I heard the cups andsaucers go as he slammed the door on the hounds' noses, and the minutehe was in Flurry turned the key on him. 'They're real dogs, Tomsy, mybuck!' says Flurry, just to quiet him; and there we left him."

  "Was he hurt?" I asked, conscious of the triviality of the question.

  "Well, he lost his brush," replied Dr. Hickey. "Old Merrylegs tore thecoat-tails off him; we got them on the floor when we struck a light;Flurry has them to nail on his kennel door. Charley Knox had apleasant time too," he went on, "with the man that brought thebarrow-load of meat to the stable. We picked out the tastiest bits andarranged them round Flood's breakfast table for him. They smelt verynice. Well, I'm delaying you with my talking----"

  Flurry's hounds had the run of the season that day. I saw it admirablythroughout--from Miss Bennett's pony cart. She drove extremely well,in spite of her strained arm.